Hate it or love it, Americans need Hollywood to guide us in world affairs and encourage our contributions to countries and organizations in need. While Bono, Bill Gates and Angelina Jolie are celebrities who have used their star power to bring attention to various causes, it may seem like there are only a couple of African-American celebrities who raise awareness and money for Africa without much praise or recognition. Alas, there are more than the media lets on. Here, we’ve assembled a few of the shining stars who give back to Africa and then some…
Alicia Keys
It’s no wonder that Alicia Keys was voted the second most charitable celebrity in 2010. Her organization, Keep A Child Alive, provides life saving treatment and care to those in Africa and India affected by HIV/AIDS, and provides support to orphans and other family members impacted by the disease. Since 2004, the organization has raised over 10 million from its annual Black Ball fundraiser gala. This year, the gala raised $2.2 million, and featured performances from Jay-Z, Janelle Monae and Sade.
On World AIDS Day 2010, Alicia along with her celebrity friends staged a “virtual death” from social media and raised $1 million in support of the fight against HIV/AIDS.
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Oprah Winfrey
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey founded Oprah’s Angel Network to promote helping others, but her most notable work to date has to be the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa—opened in 2007– which aims to help low-income girls receive an education. “The school will teach girls to be the best human beings they can ever be; it will train them to become decision-makers and leaders; it will be a model school for the rest of the world,” she said.
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Don Cheadle
Best known for roles in Out of Sight, Traffic and Ocean’s Eleven, Cheadle is also a star when it comes to philanthropy. Involved in raising awareness of the genocide in Darfur, he was awarded the BET Humanitarian award of the yearin 2007 for his service to the people of Darfur and Rwanda. That same year, Cheadle and fellow actor George Clooney were presented with the Summit Peace Award by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Rome for their work to stop the genocide and relieve the suffering of the people of Darfur.
Ante Up For Africa is a non-profit organization founded by Don Cheadle, Annie Duke and Norman Epstein dedicated to raising money and awareness for Africans in need.
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Blair Underwood
The actor co-founded Artists for a New South Africa, a nonprofit organization working in the U.S. and South Africa to combat HIV/AIDS, assist children orphaned by the disease, advance human and civil rights, educate and empower youth, and build bonds between our nations through arts, culture, and our shared pursuit of social justice. The organization has received support from people including: Anthony Anderson, Chris Rock, Erykah Badu, Forrest Whitaker, Holly Robinson-Peete, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Rodney Peete and Samuel L. Jackson.
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John Legend
Giving back was a part of John Legend’s life as a kid growing up in the church in his hometown of Springfield, Ohio, and he has continued his charitable ways as an adult and Grammy award-winning multi-platinum artist. Legend supports charities such as Global Fund, LIFEbeat, Second Harvest, Malaria No More, Peace One Day and Live Earth. His Show Me Campaign, launched in 2007, is an organization that “fights poverty using proven solutions.” Believing that equal access to quality education is the civil rights issue of our time, the Show Me Campaign fights for education reform in the United States. In Africa, Show Me works with Millennium Promise to provide clean water, health care, education and other basic tools that break the cycle of poverty. His fans are also encouraged to donate funds toward improving the living situations and prospects of victims of extreme poverty in Mbola, Tanzania.
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Dikembe Mutumbo
A well-known humanitarian, the now-retired Congolese American basketball star started the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation to improve living conditions in his native Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. His efforts earned him the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award in 2001 and 2009. In 2004, he also participated in the Basketball Without Borders NBA program, where NBA stars like Shawn Bradley, Malik Rose and DeSagana Diop toured Africa to spread the word about basketball and to help improve the infrastructure. He also paid for uniforms and expenses for the Zaire women’s basketball team during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. Mutombo is a spokesman for the international relief agency, CARE and is the first Youth Emissary for the United States Development Program.
In honor of his humanitarianism, Mutombo was invited to President George W. Bush’s 2007 State of the Union Address and was referred to as a “son of the Congo” by the President in his speech.
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Isaiah Washington
Actor and philanthropist Washington (who played Dr. Preston Burke on TV’s Grey’s Anatomy) has teamed up with the organization Waves 4 Water to provide water filters and construct rain water catching devices to promote sustainable water systems in some of the poorest villages in the world. Waves 4 Water has been involved at ground zero of disaster relief efforts in places such as Bali, Sumatra and Haiti to make drinking water safe again for earthquake and tsunami victims and villages affected by diseases such as cholera.
The actor was inspired to found his charity, the Gondobay Magna Foundation, after performing a DNA test and learning of his ancestral ties to the Mende Temne people of Sierra Leone. On April 26, 2010, he was sworn in as a Sierra Leonean citizen, becoming the first African American to obtain dual citizenship based on his DNA connection.
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Liya Kebede
The Liya Kebede Foundation is committed to ensuring that every woman, no matter where she lives, has access to life-saving care. The Ethiopian model, actress, fashion designer, and activist, who is the World Health Organization’s Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, started her charity in 2008.
“I am so inspired and energized by the dedicated people I meet through the Liya Kebede Foundation,” the model and activist said in a September 2010 interview with Forbes magazine. “My commitment is redoubled every time I meet the people in the field who are working to save lives every day with such small resources. On my last trip to Ethiopia, I met a young health worker. She spends her days giving basic health care to mothers and families on the front lines of community health. While we were there, she walked to a mother in a remote village to help her deliver her baby safely. Before she came, there was no health care in the village. It is stories like these that keep me working.”
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Akon
When he’s not making hits, Senegalese-American R&B singer-songwriter, record producer and businessman, Akon works as a philanthropist.
He started the Konfidence Foundation, a nonprofit organization, dedicated to increasing public awareness of the conditions in Africa and providing underprivileged youth with access to learning and recreational environments equipped with modern technology, educational materials, recreational resources, and health and wellness services. According to their website, the Foundation’s concentrated efforts in Senegal—Akon’s home country—will one day serve as the international platform to empower individuals, communities, and nations with the tools needed to build the Africa of tomorrow.
A portion of the sales from his 2010 single ‘Oh Africa’ went towards helping underprivileged African youth, including Akon’s own ‘Konfidence Foundation’. The single was a collaboration between Akon, Grammy-nominated singer Keri Hilson, the South African Soweto Gospel Choir and 16 aspiring musicians from around the world including China, Turkey and Tanzania.
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Denzel Washington
With his cool as a cucumber exterior, Washington definitely has a soft spot for helping others. Besides being the national spokesman for the Boys’ and Girls’ clubs of America, Washington supports the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund where he is a lifetime founder member. In 2006, he donated $1 million to Save Africa’s Children, a charity based in Los Angeles that cares for orphans in Africa, where he is the honorary chairperson and where Angela Bassett sits on the Board of Directors.
“No other African American founded organization in the United States is accomplishing what Save Africa’s Children is accomplishing. My family and I are proud to be involved with their great cause,” Washington has said.
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